and it begins to settle in

Well, so I have been in Cambodia for about one week and so far it is nothing that has been described to me or what I originally expected.  Aside from the blazing heat, the physical picture that I had painted in my mind before I left home has been far off.  Come tomorrow it will be exactly two weeks since I left my cozy home in Nebraska for the promise of two years of heat, bugs and rice. 

Onto today’s activities, we rode into the hub site along with the other trainees to do some administrative work along with vaccinations and it was overall a fairly pleasant day.  However there is one part of today that has been sticking in my mind. 

On our way to Takeo I rode with an LCF that had been a small girl when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia. 

As many people are not aware the Khmer Rouge was one of the most oppressive regimes in the 20^th century and systematically killed over 2 million people in a country that had a population of around 10 million at the time.  During the Khmer Rouge any person who had any type of education or even was literate was executed.  

After South Vietnam fell and Vietnam was united as one country, Cambodia’s monarchy was soon to follow.  Cambodia was not supported by the Vietnamese who had arguably one of the most efficient armies in the world at this time, and Pol Pot’s loyalties were with Communist Vietnam.  Pol Pot had been causing problems for Cambodia’s monarchy since he returned from France (he was educated in France) and his revolution really began to build steam once the United States evacuated Vietnam.

As the revolution became more prominent and the communist party of Pol Pot began to assert its power the king was helpless as the countryside became a wasteland and intellectuals fled the country.  On April 16, 1975 Pol Pot marched his army into Phnom Penh and took control of the government, all educational institutions were outlawed and schools were burnt down or turned into communal eating areas.  Possessions became a thing of the past and everyone was forced to live within small tents in the rice fields and harvest rice every day. 

Anyway onto my ride into Takeo.  I was sharing a tuk tuk with one of our more experienced language teachers and she was telling us about her time as a little girl during the Khmer Rouge.  As we looked out into the vast rice fields she described to us what it was like to live in a tent and only have one dress to wear for four years.  On top of that the rice that was harvested by her family was give to a town chief who distributed the rice according to his whim.  Many people ate once a day and few ate twice.

So as I rode into town on an uncomfortable tuk tuk I stopped to think how far this country has come since that period, and about how this is what I will be a part of for the next two years.  All of a sudden no air conditioning doesn’t seem so bad.